Earlier this week it was reported that Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas suggested the Jeep brand itself was actually worth more than its parent company, Fiat-Chrysler. Specifically, he pegged Jeep’s value at 120% of FCA’s market capitalization. It doesn't take a financial whiz to wonder whether the question shouldn’t be if FCA will divest itself of the Jeep brand, but when.

Back in April, FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne confided in an earnings call that spinning off either or both the Jeep and Ram brands was a possibility, though no steps have yet been taken in that direction. It’s not without precedent, as FCA made a similar move with its Ferrari brand in 2016. For his part, Jonas is said to expect the divestiture to happen once Marchionne steps down to oversee Ferrari by the end of 2018.

To be sure, Jeep is among the most iconic – and durable – automotive brands on the planet and is profiting immensely from the current market shift away from sedans and into sport-utility vehicles. While Jeep sales are down by 13% over the first six months of the year, with 406,291 units delivered through the end of June it remains the company’s largest-selling nameplate, and is responsible for 38% of FCA’s sales. It’s also an international brand, with Jeep selling more than 1.4 million units worldwide last year. And that’s despite a slew of bad press regarding the lingering of older and inferior models like the Patriot, and performance/durability issues with newer, Fiat-infused models like the Cherokee and Renegade. Still, Jonas says the brand could be responsible for half the company’s sales by 2018.

With the original Jeep tracing its lineage to World War II as a go-anywhere general purpose vehicle, the brand has changed hands more times throughout its storied history than a hot potato. The Willys-Overland company began selling an only modestly modified CJ (for Civilian Jeep) following the war’s end in 1944, and the line was subsequently expanded to what would become a long line of SUVs and pickup trucks. The company was later sold to Kaiser Motors in 1953, which shortened the brand name to Willys; it was later changed to Willys-Jeep, and eventually just Jeep. American Motors purchased the brand in 1970, and the company was later acquired by Chrysler in 1987 with Lee Iacocca at the helm. AMC eventually disappeared, but Jeep survived and thrived though later changes of corporate ownership under the stewardship of Daimler, and now Fiat.

Jeep could certainly stand on its own or perhaps find a cozy home as part of another automaker’s empire; either way it would no doubt benefit from an infusion of development cash that would enable it to freshen its model lines more frequently. This year, Jeep finally redesigned its aged and enfeebled Compass crossover, and will unveil the first new Wrangler – the direct descendent of the original CJ – this fall after 11 years without a major revision; it's expected to also get back into the pickup truck business, with a bed-infused version of the Wrangler.

In fact, if it were to be bundled with FCA’s surging Ram line of pickup trucks and commercial vehicles, a separate Jeep-Ram entity could exit the starting gate with a one-two punch that could render automakers saddled with an extensive array of slow-selling sedans reeling.

But assuming the company will still be growing its Fiat and Alfa-Romeo lines in the U.S. (and not particularly successfully as combined those two brands account for just 1.7% of FCA’s volume), where would that leave the Chrysler and Dodge nameplates? Would they stand alone as FCA’s “domestic” division and perhaps remain bundled with Ram, be sold off to another automaker, or be dismantled? Together, the two industry stalwarts generated a little more than 363,000 sales over the first six months of the year, with Dodge down by 4% and Chrysler sales taking a 21% dip. Perhaps it’s telling that the biggest selling model between the two brands is the Dodge Grand Caravan minivan, which has been around in its present generation since 2008 and was originally slated to be discontinued when the Chrysler Pacifica minivan debuted for 2017.

In recent years FCA has all but divested Chrysler and Dodge of their passenger car lines, dropping the Dodge Avenger, Caliber, Dart, and Viper, and the Chrysler Sebring/200 and PT Cruiser (also the Town & Country minivan). Current models like the Dodge Durango and Journey SUVs and the aforementioned Chrysler Pacifica could well be absorbed by either Jeep or Ram, which would leave just the Chrysler 300 and the Dodge Challenger and Charger full-size passenger cars to hang in the balance. With industry-wide sales of large cars sagging this year, FCA sold around 79,000 Chargers and Challengers through the end of June, and a bit over 28,000 300s, with only the Challenger showing a modest (4%) sales increase. By contrast, FCA's two biggest sellers are the Ram pickup and Jeep Grand Cherokee, with over 250,000 and 116,000 units delivered, respectively, over the first six months of 2017.

We could stretch the imagination to see the Challenger and Charger models fitting into a repositioned Ram lineup as muscle-cars that complement its burly truck lineup if it were to be spun off (and so long 300?), but – sorry to say – aside from enthusiasts who lust after the rip-roaring over-powered SRT models, as well as law enforcement agencies buying Chargers as pursuit vehicles, would anyone really miss them?